I love apocalyptic films, there is some realism that they carry with them, a force majeure of biblical eventuality, maybe it’s because I have been raised Christian and there has always been that anvil called the book of revelation whose verses have hung over my head and sprinkled into my conscience every other time when the boogie man at the pulpit wants to sound the gong of the end of days and squeeze some extra penance coins from our already emaciated pockets. But yes, end of day films have always been a favorite of mine, from Denzel’s Book of Eli to Will Smiths I am Legend and Brad Pits World War Z, I eat this genre up. Then in early March it happened the world as we know it was immersed in an apocalyptic end of days type of plague and it had one of those Hollywood titles to boot to “Covid-19” or the novel Corona Virus, I swear whoever concocted this thing in a laboratory has to be an apocalyptic film cinephilia just like me because of bravo! right? .So yes on stage we had the Corona Virus and just like in the movies it has been spreading like wildfire, and yes just like in the movies there does not seem to be so many “Third World” zombies falling to this malady but lo and behold it has decimated the owners of this rock we live in just like the proverbial Sword of Damocles sears through those in power. But wait, in every one of this apocalyptic epic that I have watched or read about, there is always a
heroine right? a bumbling fool who eventually rises to the occasion and saves the day, well in the case of the world the pre imposed Heroine was the World Health Organization aptly acronymed WHO, as a proper superhero should be, I think the body should have been called The WHO, or Mr WHO or Lady WHO or the WHO
who identifies as other, we have never had an LGBTQ superhero at least not that I know off, I think an apocalypse is a good enough time or reason to have one in place. I digress, so yes daily updates were given by the WHO, our troop of boy and girl wonders cloaked in a cape with the Caduceus insignia, and every day like any dutiful protagonist they sat at their desk in front of the media and told us of rising numbers and what it is world bodies were doing to fight the scourge, they still are I think but now they do so in on the down-low on social media without a request for Retweet. So yes they gave us numbers of the dead and afflicted until they came out of our ears, now we have grown apathetic to this plague I feel, not that it is doing any less harm it is just that we have grown attuned to it like that Uncle who came to visit from upcountry with the smelly legs but you became used to the putrid smell four months down the line when it dawned on you he was not leaving soon nor was his affinity for gumboots. So yes updates, drowned on, but as with every plot there is a twist and an antihero who comes from the left side enter Mr Trump the topmost self-imposed scientist from the Wild wild West joined the fray and he sought to clip the wings of the heroine WHO, who identifies as other our interest was piqued again, for this man suggested we drink Bleach to be healed of this socurge.To make a plot the more interesting, our nemesis to the protagonist had a challenger from the ranks of the WHO known as Dr Fauci a pint-sized bespectacled sage who we thought was our hero, but now he was no match for the Orange faced man with hair that looked like rats fuzz shavings on his head and oh boy he ran circles around our mini protagonist. We got bored yet again as deaths raged on we asked how many sequels are there to this epidemic this apocalyptic farce needs to end already! and alas, just in the nick of time, the medicine men atop the mountains of Pfizer et al found a cure for the Covid menace phew! just in time for Christmas consumerism too, Jesus must like the idea of capitalism.
At some point, I thought this film franchise would drown on to ad infinitum like that Star Wars hubbub has.
But wait, there is a twist in the plot, (as with any farce worth it is salt) remember us the peoples of The “Third World” well, the fourth wall has fallen for yours truly, the lot of us can barely afford to put three square meals on the table so we would be hard-pressed to buy a vaccine from the medicine men in the mountain. So yes, even though the plague is slowly gaining tide in our end of town we are up the river without a paddle if you will, and just like a mini plague that has been wreaking havoc for decades in this parts now known as the HIV/AIDS we think this particular Apocalyptic film called Covid will have endless reruns on our end of this rock we call home until a saviour, a medicine man or our Ostrich head in the sand leaders do something about it(sic!), till then, we will settle for the many televangelists for our dose of placebo blind faith as the level headed among us make beelines to the market store to buy lime, ginger and garlic to make concoctions to keep the Covid at bay. I do hope we find a heroine of our own we will call him Mr Third World generic perhaps? We can only hope some hero with Aladdin like lineage (India wink) comes to our rescue in time before we yet again become fodder for the myriad NGOs that litter our corner of the world.
Ben Mbocha 